THE duplication of the Richmond train line is still on the government’s agenda according to Riverstone MP Kevin Conolly, while Hawkesbury MP Dominic Perrottet has been silent on the project.
A duplication of the line would allow more trains to service Richmond and the other stations along the line.
It is currently duplicated all the way to Schofields,. before returning to a single track. Trains must wait at Riverstone, where there is a section of duplicated track, to let trains heading in the other direction pass.
The previous Labor government had plans to duplicate the line, but in 2008 those plans were dumped by Labor in Nathan Rees’ ‘mini-budget’.
A decade later, Mr Conolly has told the Gazette that the state government will address the duplication at some stage in the future, potentially in “seven or eight years” but said there were a number of hurdles in the way.
For a start, he said the government had already committed to a number of big infrastructure projects.
“I've been attempting to keep it alive as an option,” Mr Conolly said.
“We've committed to some very big projects around Sydney and we'll have to complete them before we can come back to the Richmond rail line.”
He said another hurdle was ongoing road upgrades in the Schofields and Riverstone area.
Roads and Maritime Services is doing a number of works as part of the North West Priority Growth Area road network.
Mr Conolly said he understood those works would take about seven or eight years need to be completed, and then the train line could be duplicated.
Mr Conolly said he was in favour of duplication up to Mulgrave.
He said was not necessarily opposed to a full duplication, but once the track got to Mulgrave it would need a large viaduct built to lift it above the floodplains and it would become a very expensive project.
“At the moment I have advocated for duplication to Vineyard, which was the plan before it was dropped,” he said.
“I have alluded of the possibility of going further to Mulgrave. It becomes more expensive [past Mulgrave].”
Mr Conolly also recently said that it was ‘critical’ that the railway line be built over Garfield Road in Riverstone, to reduce congestion in the town centre and improve the area’s capacity.
Mr Perrottet, the Treasurer, recently boasted in Parliament that: “This Government will build more hospitals, more schools, more roads and more rail than ever before.”
The Gazette contacted Mr Perrottet’s office on March 15 and has received no response to our question, about whether some of that rail would be built along the Richmond line.
